In Defense of the Wrong Side of History

Why Ordinary People Choose the Wrong Side in Civil Wars—And Why You Might Have Too

I've been spending a lot of time lately studying the English Civil War, and it’s brought something to mind—something not just about that war in particular, but about civil wars in general and how we look back on them. For Americans, there are really three epoch-making civil wars in our historical consciousness.

Obviously, our minds go immediately to the American Civil War of the 1860s. But then there’s the American Revolution, which was in fact a civil war—a war among Englishmen, often within communities and even within families. And then, importantly, the English Civil War in the 1640s. That conflict, too, was in a very real sense our civil war. Its repercussions extended across the Atlantic. The Puritans of New England sent many of their men back to England to fight. And the very settlement and development of the American colonies were deeply entwined with the English civil conflicts. Immigration to the New World was shaped by the English Civil War. Political and social structures that took root in America carried the imprint of that bloody upheaval.

So, those are our three big civil wars. And if you just lined them up and asked Americans to pick the good guys and the bad guys, I don’t think most people would struggle with it.

In the English Civil War? Obviously Parliament. They were the ones resisting the divine right of kings. They were fighting for limited government, rule of law, habeas corpus, opposition to quartering of troops, and no taxation without representation—concepts that would later form the backbone of our own Revolution. And if you’re a Protestant, especially a Reformed Protestant like myself, the answer seems even clearer. This was a theologically motivated war. And our theological ancestors—whether Baptist or Presbyterian—were clearly on the side of Parliament. That’s who they were fighting on behalf of. So, again, Parliament looks like the good guys.

Move on to the American Revolution. No-brainer, right? The Patriots were fighting for liberty against a distant, unresponsive government that was becoming more oppressive. They wanted self-rule and personal freedom.

Then there's the American Civil War. Here, too, it's seemingly obvious: the North was in the right. They were fighting to rid the nation of the scourge of slavery, to preserve the Union, and to birth a new society based on equality rather than a Southern quasi-aristocracy.

But what would it have looked like on the ground? What would it have felt like if you were just some ordinary Englishman or American? Not a politician or a theologian. Just a man living your life?

One of the things I’ve found fascinating is the way the Puritans had been working, even before the outbreak of war, to leverage the power of the state—especially local magistrates—to impose their vision of a godly society. This meant moral reform. It meant eradicating anything that smacked of Catholicism. And it also meant forcibly banning alehouses, sports, festivals, traditional celebrations, and even dancing. They were enacting blue laws. They were driving out English folkways that had persisted for centuries.

And they were successful. In southeast England, their heartland, they largely stamped out these traditions. Those folkways fled west and north—to what would later become the heartland of Royalism during the war. That’s telling. Because it suggests that people weren’t choosing sides based on fine political or theological distinctions. They were choosing based on cultural affinity.

You might not have cared about the debate between Arminian and Reformed theology. You might not have tracked with the arguments about Parliament's authority versus the Crown’s. But you might have noticed that your neighbors—wealthy, entrepreneurial, self-assured Puritans—were now banning Christmas. Banning dancing. Banning drinking. Trying to make you into something you weren’t, all in the name of reform.

And in that context, I could easily see myself having been a Royalist. I would have been repulsed by the busybodies with their swords and their moral vision. To me, they would have looked like fanatics—another wave in a century of top-down reform, stretching all the way back to Henry VIII, that had disrupted and desecrated the local traditions of ordinary people.

If you were a poor English farmer, your parish church had been the center of your world. Then one day, the government came in, tore down the saints, stripped the altars, closed the monasteries that had fed your community, and seized all the wealth. And now, fast forward a century, and the Puritans were at it again. This time, coming for your holidays and your sports. I think a lot of Englishmen saw them as dangerous zealots.

So yes, I think, at the ground level, I would have likely been a Royalist.

Then there's the American Revolution. Obviously, we want to believe we would have been Patriots. But the historical record is clear: a significant number of people were loyalists. And why wouldn’t they be? They were English. The move to sever ties with England was radical.

Up until the break, a lot of colonists thought they were just asserting their rights as Englishmen. Even in England, there were many who sympathized with that argument. The problem came when the British government decided it wanted to remake the imperial structure. They weren’t just dealing with fellow Englishmen anymore; they were trying to subordinate American colonists as subjects of an empire.

So yes, the Patriots had a legitimate cause. But for those who remained loyal to England, the Revolution quickly became a nightmare. The Sons of Liberty and other Patriot groups essentially imposed a police state. Loyalists were harassed, tarred and feathered—a gruesome experience—intimidated, deprived of property, and threatened. Their mail was read. Mobs came to their homes.

And this was before the British army even got boots on the ground. In many colonies, the Patriots were in control early on. What these loyalists experienced wasn’t the chaos of war between nations. It was persecution at the hands of their own neighbors. When the British arrived, many loyalists were already radicalized. They wanted revenge.

And the worst atrocities of the war? Often not British against colonists, but American against American. Patriot versus Tory. Tory versus Patriot. It was a real civil war.

And again, I can imagine myself in that context. I can imagine sympathizing with the cause of the Patriots but being appalled by their methods. These were mobs, not heroes. The Boston Massacre? If you really study it, it was not a massacre. It was British soldiers defending themselves from an angry mob. And they got a fair trial—defended by none other than John Adams. Most were acquitted.

So again, it’s not as clear as we like to think.

Then there’s the American Civil War.

This one hits closer to home because of what I know about my own ancestors. They fought in the 32nd Virginia Regiment. Before that, they were part of the York Rangers—formed in York County by poor farmers and watermen. These weren’t slave owners. They didn’t have plantations. And early on, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the Confederate cause. People saw it as a rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.

But then the Union troops showed up. Coming out of Fort Monroe, they began to burn homes. Thomas Fleming’s A Disease in the Public Mind does a great job capturing the mindset. These early attacks weren’t official Union policy—not yet. They were acts of zealotry by Northern soldiers who had been raised to believe the South was a land of moral evil.

And so, when Union soldiers started burning farms, the locals fought back. The York Rangers formed, and many eventually joined the Confederate Army.

That’s just one small window. But it paints a picture of why someone might have fought for the Confederacy.

Even in the North, abolitionism wasn’t universally popular. It had an air of fanaticism to many. That fanaticism was embodied in John Brown. He didn’t just want to end slavery; he wanted to raise the slaves in rebellion—a violent, apocalyptic reckoning. And people knew what that meant. They remembered the Haitian Revolution: rebellion, yes, but also the massacre of every French man, woman, and child on the island.

They remembered Nat Turner’s rebellion: schoolchildren murdered. Women and men hacked to death. People feared a race war. And Southern law reflected that fear—creating an apartheid state to try to prevent it.

That state was horrific. It was unjustifiable. But it was also deeply rooted in fear—and in a sense of being trapped. Jefferson said as much: they had the tiger by the ears. No one knew how to let go.

Slavery had been inherited. And while that doesn’t absolve Southern complicity, it does mean that many Southerners were simply born into a system they didn’t create. Meanwhile, New Englanders had profited enormously from building that system in the first place.

And yet, the abolitionists refused to see any of that. They saw only evil. They saw only enemies. And if a Haiti-style uprising wiped Southerners off the face of the earth? That was God’s justice.

John Brown wanted exactly that. And he tried to start it. He was a terrorist. Ironically, the first person he killed was a free African American.

So, while I sympathize with many of Brown’s men—like the former slave who wanted to be reunited with his family—I can’t get on board with Brown’s mindset. It was all about self-righteousness. All about wrath. No consideration for the complexity of human life.

That strain of thinking—that Puritanical thread that runs through all three wars, where people believe they embody God’s wrath and have a divine mandate to destroy their enemies—that’s what I find most horrifying.

Yes, Charles I was a tyrant. Yes, the British Crown tried to deny Americans their rights. Yes, the Confederacy was fighting to preserve a monstrous institution.

But the response of the other side in each of these wars was not always righteous. It was often self-righteous. Often violent. Often dismissive of the actual, complicated humanity of their opponents.

So yes, intellectually, I align with the Parliamentarians, the Patriots, and the Union. But if I had lived back then? I think I might have been a Royalist. A Tory. A Confederate.

Not because I agree with their causes. But because I sympathize with the ordinary person just trying to live their life, who finds someone at their door with a gun saying: comply, or else.

If I were an Englishman in the 17th century, I might not have cared about the debates. But when I found out they wanted to ban Christmas?

Hell no, you puritanical bastards. Hand me my musket.